Winter
by ricochette
Summary: A one-shot feature Ronald Speirs, during his youth in military school, before the war.


**Author's Note**: I was going through my old files on my laptop and found this - I'm not sure what it was supposed to be. Simply put, it's a quick one shot on Ronald Speirs. Excuse any poor quality - this was written over five years ago.

The air was cold.

So cold, in fact, that Ronald Speirs couldn't remember a colder day. The newscaster, the next day, would report that the day prior was the coldest winter day in Portland, Maine in over sixty three years. For the first time in eleven years and forty seven days, the morning run around the military barracks had been called off.

Ronald Speirs knew this, but he didn't seem to care. He ran anyways, protected by thick wool and his sturdy leather boots. It must have been four thirty in the morning, because the sky was still black – so black, in fact, that you could almost still map out the stars and discern constellations. The moon would be replaced by the sun in less than thirty five minutes.

He was an observer. Observers were always aware, he told himself. They always knew everything and that didn't bother them. They always took mental notes that they found immensely difficult to forget. Observers, he reminded himself, couldn't even forget things on purpose. They made good soldiers. They were tough and they had the unique ability to keep one foot firmly grounded in the present, while the other straddled the past and future at the same time in a ballet of pure logic.

His calf muscles were clearly defined – cut and shaped from years spent running, working in the shipyard, and participating in exercises. His legs moved swiftly over the grounds of the school; it was nearly impossible to make out his features unless he paused for a brief second – but then again, he rarely paused. When he ran, he thought. He thought a lot.

He thought about his yesterdays and his tomorrows. He thought about people. He thought about the invisible links that connected people and whether or not people understood him. He knew the people around him didn't. He was, after all, an observer. He knew what people said. He was eighteen years old and painfully aware of everything that occurred around him.

The boys around him fancied him to be some sort of machine – a machine that was only concerned with progress and accomplishing tasks. His strategy professor jokingly chastised him, reminding him not to become too much like their much discussed philosopher, John Stuart Mill. _"He was a logic chomping machine, Speirs. That's what his contemporaries called him. Logic is great, don't get me wrong. Life's a battle and you'll need that out there. Don't lose sight of the things that don't seem to matter at first – sometimes, they end up being the most meaningful_." The retired colonel who taught at the school could have been a philosopher in his own right. Ron took his words quietly to heart and thought about him as he did his morning run.

He rarely saw his family, though they lived only two hours away from the academy. They never wrote to him and they certainly never sent him money. He had very few memories of actually doing things with his mother – she would often sit at the window, drinking tea. His father would tell him to leave her be – that's the way she was – and that she was just homesick.

Homesick for Scotland.

He couldn't remember Scotland. Sometimes, when he ran, he wondered if things would be different if he was running through the cobblestone streets of Edinburgh. He wondered if the way the wind hit his hair would be different. He hoped, for some silly reason that he would never want to justify, that it would be the same. Maybe it was his mother's longing that made him want that.

His mother died the year before. His father said she was heartbroken – and said nothing else. Ronald knew better. He kept running. He heard the faint sound of twigs crunching underneath his boot clad feet as he continued to propel his body through the absurdly cold air that enveloped him.

He wondered whether or not God existed. When he contemplated God, however, he felt as if he was a child getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He felt like there was always some grandmother-esque figure holding a wooden spoon, watching over him, and chastising him for thinking such silly thoughts.

But still, he ran.

He wondered if he was running from something. Deep down, he knew he was. He wanted passionately, however, to be running _to_ something. He wanted to run into some sort of wild, bright light that would swallow him. He wanted to feel the cold air embrace his body and take control of him. He wanted to feel gravity – he yearned for it – carry him through the sky. He wanted to weigh more than anything – yet feel weightless at the same time.

Deep down, Ronald Speirs wanted more than anything to be alive.


End file.
